It All Comes Down
by Chamonix
Summary: Daniel always knew that offworld was a dangerous place...but who knew that his downfall could come from a routine day on Earth.
1. Default Chapter

_DISCLAIMER: I do not own the characters in this story. They are not mine; I promise. I believe they are owned by the lovely people of MGM and possibly the Sci-Fi Network (though I'm really not sure). I'm really just playing with the characters._

_SPOILERS: Honestly, I'm sure there will be some. This story is pretty much assuming everything has happened up through about mid season 7 (Daniel has ascended and descended, Janet is still alive, and probably will stay that way). Enjoy!_

"Colonel, Major, do either of you have any idea where Dr. Jackson is?" General Hammond asked warily as he looked at the remaining members of SG-1.

Major Samantha Carter looked up from the brief she was reviewing to answer, "No sir. I don't know where Daniel is. I phoned him about ten minutes before the brief when I realized he still wasn't here but he didn't answer his home or cell phone."

"Very well Major. If he is not here in fifteen minutes we will have to reschedule..." General Hammond was cut off as someone entered the room. "Excuse me lieutenant, this is a closed briefing and I am not to be interrupted unless an emergency arises."

"I believe there is an emergency sir. I've just been instructed to have you pick up line three."

"And do you know what this phone call is referring to?"

The young soldier shook his head and said, "No sir. I don't I was only told to make sure you answered this call as soon as possible sir."

General Hammond nodded and moved towards the phone on the wall. After a brief conversation with the person on the line, he turned back towards his team and said, "You three need to get to the Academy Hospital immediately."

The abrupt instructions struck Colonel Jack O'Neil as odd and he looked up to ask about it, "General, are we going on a field trip?"

"There's been an accident Colonel. It's Dr. Jackson."

"Sir, what kind of accident?" Sam asked as she heard the news.

"The General shook his head slightly. "I'm not really sure. They found his NORAD clearance tags and assumed that we would know the proper people to contact about this. Apparently he was in an accident of some sort on his way in this morning. You three should go now and I'll be there when I can."

Sam nodded but General Hammond could already see the distant look in her eyes. They all knew that Daniel would have called them himself if he could have.

"You two, in my truck in five minutes." Jack said as he gathered up his files and left the room. Teal'c and Sam silently agreed as they too gathered their belongings and headed for the surface.

SGCSGCSGCSGCSGCSGCSGCSGCSGCSGCSGCSGCSGCSGCSGCSGCSGCSGCSGCSGCSGCSGCSGCSGCSGCSGCSGCSGCSGCSGCSGCSGC

The page itself was not an unusual one as Dr. Janet Fraiser had been on call at the hospital for many years now. Although she had once been on staff at the Academy Hospital, she had given that up as more gate teams were added and her presence was required more frequently at the base. Since she was one of the best surgeons in the Air Force though, when a consult was needed, she got the page. What was unusual was the fact that it was an emergency page. She had only ever received two of these in the five years she had been consulting on cases there. This in and of itself means that it was a bad case and that she was needed immediately. They were only lucky that they had caught her before she made it to the mountain. If they had paged her there, it would have taken her almost forty minutes to make it to the hospital; because she got paged at home, it would only take her ten.

As she arrived at the hospital she immediately ran into the emergency room and showed her badge to the nearest nurse. "I was paged, where is my patient?"

The nurse took one look at Dr. Fraiser and then said, "Dr. Lucas managed to stabilize the patient enough to get him to surgery. Right now they are prepping him. I expect they'll be in surgery in ten minutes. I'll tell them you are on your way up."

"Which OR, nurse?"

"Number 3 Dr. Fraiser."

Janet simply waved the nurse off as she ran up the stairs to the operating room. Reaching the second floor she moved quickly to the prep room for OR 3. Inside she was greeted by Dr. Emily Lucas as she prepared for surgery. Moving to the sink, Dr. Fraiser began to wash as she got the basics from Dr. Lucas. "So why was I paged?"

"This one is bad Janet. He's got a little bit of everything from broken ribs to internal bleeding, but I think our real problems are the two spinal injuries."

As soon as those words were out of the doctor's mouth, Dr. Fraiser knew why she'd been paged. She was a good surgeon but she was one of the most recognized doctors on spinal injuries in the area. "You said he has two?"

"There is damage to both the upper and lower sections of the spinal column. Because of the amount of blood and swelling present during the scan, we can't be sure of the severity or exact locations of the damage. He was hit head on in the accident and pretty much wrapped around the steering wheel. We are lucky that he was in good physical health before the accident or it would have been worse."

"Alright then, how long until he's ready for surgery?"

"They are still finishing with the last of the scans. I'd say three minutes."

"Then let's be waiting for him. I don't want to wait this any longer. I'm going to need to stabilize those spinal fractures first unless there is anything more pressing." Janet said as she led the other doctor out into the operating room.

"He's got some internal injuries that need to be tended to but I'm hoping that with the two of us we can stabilize those quickly. We already repaired a punctured lung in the emergency room but we'll need to watch that closely."

"Okay, here comes our patient." Dr. Fraiser said as she saw the gurney with her newest patient be wheeled in. Her jaw nearly hit the floor though when she saw who that patient was.

"Janet? Janet? Are you okay?" Dr. Lucas asked as she saw the look on Dr. Fraiser's face.

The question from her colleague seemed to snap her out of her reverie and she answered, "Yes, yes I'm fine. I just know him. He's a friend, a good friend."

"Are you going to be alright to perform this surgery?"

"Yes I'll be fine. Daniel is a good friend but I've also been his doctor for seven years and I've pulled him through worse things." Dr. Fraiser said, obviously not mentioning just what those worse situations were. Whether or not she admitted it to herself, she was as scared as she ever had been for Daniel; this looked bad.


	2. Chapter 2

_DISCLAIMER: See first chapter_

Jack watched Sam as they pulled into the parking lot of the hospital. She had yet to say a word in the entire forty minute drive in. He knew that she and Daniel were close, but the withdrawn persona she was exhibiting now was disturbing to say the least. It was almost as if she already knew that this was going to be bad, really bad.

As soon as Jack had stopped the truck, Sam had bolted out the door and into the hospital. Jack and Teal'c followed almost as quickly and neared the receptionist's desk in time to hear Sam say, "I need to know where Daniel Jackson is immediately."

Although she had been in a silent shock since finding out about Daniel's accident, her voice had returned with a vengeance upon arriving at the hospital. The pure desperation in her voice as she said those few words surprised Jack. He'd never heard Sam sound like that.

"Excuse me?" the nurse running the desk said as she looked up from her paperwork.

"I said, 'I need to know where Daniel Jackson is immediately.'" She didn't want to put up with any crap from the receptionist and paused slightly after each word, hoping the nurse would understand the urgency of this request.

"Are you relatives?" The nurse asked looking at the unusual mix of people in front of her.

"No we're not but..." Jack began.

"Unless you are family members, I can not let you see him or release any information about his condition until he is conscious and capable of releasing that himself. Because he is not military personnel, I can only release information to family members of a patient."

Jack responded with as much restraint as he could acquire at the time, "Listen to me closely _Captain_, Daniel does not have any family other than us. While we are not blood relatives we are in every way his family. Take into account that I have been his commanding officer for the last seven years and you could say we are closer than family. Obviously someone here found his Air Force passes and clearance or they wouldn't have called us. He might not be in the Air Force, but he has been on its payroll for a long time now. If I have to I will make it an order, but I don't want to. Now we'll ask again, where is Daniel Jackson?"

"I'm sorry, what did you say your name was?" the nurse asked then quickly added, "just so I can get your names on his approved guest list."

"Put _Colonel_ Jack O'Neil, _Major _Samantha Carter, and Murray on the list."

Upon hearing the titles attached to the names the nurse looked up again, "Colonel, Major?"

"Yes."

"Okay, your names are now on the list sir. I'm sorry about the misunderstanding. I didn't know."

"Well that's just great isn't it? Can you tell us where our friend is now?" Jack was still upset about her treatment of Sam before but he knew she was just doing her job so he tried to be a little friendlier.

"Of course sir. Just one moment while I access his file. I see it now. He is still in the operating room. Based on what I am seeing, he is expected to be there for at least another four hours. As soon as I hear anything from a doctor or nurse I will personally come and find you. If you want, you can wait in the family waiting room on the third floor. It is right next to the ICU."

"Thank you Captain." Teal'c said as he made his way over to the elevators.

"Carter, Carter." Jack tried. Eventually he gave up with the formal approach and tried, "Sam!"

"Huh? What?" Sam said before turning to look at Jack. "Oh sorry sir."

"Come on. We should go upstairs and wait. There's nothing we can do right now."

When Sam remained as quiet as she had before and was still not moving, Jack saw that she must be in some kind of shock. Instead of prodding her more, he simply put an arm around her waist and led her to the elevators and the waiting room. She didn't acknowledge his touch or even the movement. She simply let him lead her to where he was going. Once there, he set her down in a chair and sat next to her with Teal'c on her other side. All they could do now as wait, and that was going to be the hardest thing of all.


	3. Chapter 3

_DISCLAIMER: See chapter 1_

After many hours Jack, Sam and Teal'c were all starting to get anxious. Sam still hadn't said anything and was instead staring straight ahead at the undecorated wall in front of them. They still hadn't heard a word from a doctor or nurse and even Teal'c was getting restless at the lack of information.

The only saving grace about the situation was that they were alone in the waiting room. They didn't have to deal with other worried families, but instead could simply be by themselves.

Hearing movement in the hall outside, Jack and Teal'c immediately rose to hear the news from the doctors they hoped was outside the door. They were sorely disappointed when the door opened and it wasn't a doctor, but instead General Hammond.

"Hello sir." Jack said dejectedly.

"Colonel, any news?" Not taking offense at the tone in Jack's voice. He'd seen SG1 with the same spirit whenever one of them was injured.

"No sir. Nothing yet." Jack said as he moved back to his position beside Sam.

Seeing the person next to Jack, General Hammond moved to the chair that Teal'c had vacated. He'd known Sam since she was a little girl and had only ever seen this look on her face twice; the first was right after her mother died and the second was when she found out her father was ill. As he sat down he ignored protocol and pulled her into a hug that he hadn't given her since she was a small child. "Sam he'll be alright. We've all seen Dr. Jackson through worse accidents than one a car can cause."

"Indeed Major Carter. DanielJackson will pull through."

Whether it was what was said or simply the closeness she felt in the hug, Sam seemed to hear the message and relax somewhat. General Hammond gently let her go but remained next to her. She returned to her former position staring at the wall but there seemed to be a slightly less haunted look on her face this time. Fortunately it wasn't long before they once again heard movement outside the door. This time all rose and when the door opened they were equally as surprised by who was behind it.

"Janet?" Sam said stepping towards her friend and breaking the silence she had embraced hours before.

"Yes, I received an emergency page for this accident. I didn't know it was Daniel until I arrived."

Sam paled and swayed slightly almost falling, except for the arm that Jack had placed once again around her waist. Sam knew that Janet was only paged for the really bad cases, and Daniel's must have been bad.

"What can you tell us doctor?" General Hammond asked, also knowing about the situations that usually resulted in his chief medical officer receiving emergency pages.

"What I can tell you is that he is lucky he was brought here to this facility. Beyond that I can tell you that he will be unconscious for a few days at the least, and probably more at that. After that, it will be a long recovery. He sustained numerous internal injuries including a punctured lung and a ruptured spleen. He also suffered a concussion and severe bruising and cuts to a large number of his body. I specifically was paged though for the spinal injuries he received in the accident."

"What were the nature of these spinal injuries doctor?" Teal'c asked immediately concerned for his injured friend.

"I'll spare you the gritty details but in the initial scans we saw that there were injuries to both the upper and lower portions of his spine. Because he was unconscious we could not test the sensations in his body at the time and the scans were not exact. During the surgery, I was able to stabilize and repair the upper injury, as it wasn't as severe as initially thought."

"But..." Jack prompted knowing that this was going somewhere they probably didn't want to hear.

"But the lower injury was severe and complete. I was able to stabilize it but..." Janet stopped unsure of how to break this news to her friends. Daniel was her friend too and this had hit her hard but she didn't know what this was going to do to them. "But, I couldn't repair the lower injury completely. We'll know the rest of the details when he wakes up but I can say that despite all my efforts, Daniel will not have feeling below his waist. He will be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life."

It took a few minutes for the news to really sink in. Everyone in the room was reeling from the news and no one really knew what to make of it. Amazingly enough, Sam was the first to ask a question about Daniel. "Janet, there has to be something we can do. Something that you know of that could repair this. Maybe even one of my father's healing instruments or one of our other friends..."

Although Sam hadn't directly mentioned the Tokra healing device or any of the other alien cultures they had encountered, everyone in the room knew what she was referring to. Janet looked up to her friend's face and with tears in her eyes that she knew shouldn't be there she said, "Sam there's nothing we've encountered that could fix the damage that's been done. Your father's healing instruments may be effective in repairing some of the secondary damage and I would like to try them but they need all of the components to repair the damage in a person."

"So?" Sam asked. She wanted to know what else was going on behind this. Daniel was like her brother, even closer than her real brother and she couldn't bear to see him spend the rest of his days in a wheelchair; he didn't deserve it.

"Sam the lower half of his spine was almost shattered from the impact. I had to do radical surgery just to restore enough stability to it so that he could sit up on his own. In doing this I had to remove large amounts of broken bone and replace it with a steel rod. Unfortunately in doing this, I made it so that the device you're referring to won't work."

Sam was livid at hearing this but so was Jack and he managed to jump in before Sam this time and confront the doctor, "And why would you do this when you knew that we had something that could possibly heal him back at the base?"

Janet was now trying to keep from crying as she was confronted by her friends. She was essentially being yelled at by people she thought trusted her judgment and actions. As she spoke, tears streamed down her face. "Because I had to. The severity of the injury was causing a lack of circulation in his legs. If I hadn't acted like I did, he would have lost his legs before we could get him back to the base. As it was, he coded two times while in the operating room, he still isn't even stable enough to transport to the base. That will take at least a week."

The answer was not what they expected to hear from Janet and it surprised them all. Instead of saying anything though Sam just walked up to her friend and hugged her tightly whispering, "I'm sorry I doubted you. It was just so stressful. You did what you had to. I'm just glad it was you in there."

"I know Sam. It was a hard decision to make, he's my friend too. I didn't want to do it, but I had to. I'm so sorry."

The men in the room took in the realization that their colleague and friend would never walk again. Teal'c and General Hammond looked at the women in the center of the room and almost wished they could express they grief in the same way. Jack just sat back down and tried to come to terms with what he had just heard.


End file.
